Multiple iPods, one computer. How best to manage them?

Written on December 26, 2005 by Rich Trouton and 93 people have commented

My future brother-in-law now has, thanks to Christmas, two new iPods where he had none before. One is a 512 meg Shuffle and the other is a 20 gig 4th generation HP iPod, and he needs to manage them both from the same computer (currently an HP PC running Windows.) Since the two are radically different in terms of capacities and capabilities, having iTunes set to treat them both the same seemed to me to be a non-starter last night when I was helping him to get them set up. The solution I arrived at was this:

1. Set up two playlists, one for each iPod
2. Set the iPod preferences in iTunes so that the iPods are manually managed.
3. When he plugs in the Shuffle, go back into Edit: Preferences: iPod and change the settings there so that it’s automatically updating from the Shuffle’s playlist. Then update. Then set it back to manual management in the iPod preferences in iTunes.
4. For the 20 gig, same thing except that iTunes is updating from the 20 gig’s playlist.

He’s a professional workout coach and personal trainer, so he really wants to keep both as both are great for different things (the Shuffle for while he’s working out, the 20 gig for while he’s in the car, etc.) but there has to be an easier way to manage this. Has anyone worked out a better way, on either the Mac or the PC (he’s a potential switcher)? If so, let me know in the comments.

Update: Apparently, iTunes is capable of handling multiple iPods automatically. Thanks to MC Brown and Sam Pullara for letting me know about this, it’ll be a big help! Sam even provided a screenshot of this in action: http://homepage.mac.com/spullara/managingtwoipods.png

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  1. #1 Martin MC Brown says:

    You dont need to ‘manage’ anything - iTunes automatically supports multiple iPods. You can even have multiple iPods plugged in at the same time. iTunes manages a completely set of preferences, and, if you’ve configured them as such, separately manage the individual play lists that are copied across.

    You certainly don’t need to go through the hoops you suggest…

  2. #2 Sam Pullara says:

    I agree with the previous commenter. I manage a 60G iPod and a 4G iPod Nano from the same iTunes. One is set to copy everything, the Nano is set to copy a small subset. It shows up as a drop down in the options:

    http://homepage.mac.com/spullara/managingtwoipods.png

  3. #3 Chris Holland says:

    yeah i have a 4 year-old 10GB firewire iPod, a Shuffle, and as of this Christmas, a new 60GB iPod video. I haven’t plugged them all at the same time though.

  4. #4 Coco says:

    Which version of itunes supports the multiple ipods ?

  5. #5 Jon Petrie says:

    i tunes 6 will support 5 ipods hooked up to the computer at once

  6. #6 Jaquie says:

    Hi! Thanks to all that have posted and I am a goof it seems, because I am lost. Thanks to Christmas I too have two iPods, ona 30GB and one a 60GB both 5th generation I am told. I want to program one for my son and give it to him, but mange it on my work PC (yes, i do guage what the little one downloads and watches :o)). Anyway, again, I amlost as it seems i have a hard time managing even one. First, does it have to update every song every time they are plugged in??? I mean, the other day I went in and ‘unclicked’ everything except my new items that I had just added through iTunes, and sure enough, when i unhooked it, it only had the new stuff :o). So, in a nutshell, if someone could help, i’d be very grateful and will pass on the ‘niceness’ as I am just a nice person :o). Good karma for all involved - lol! Okay, i would ike to have some of the same songs and videos on the two, but mostly different stuff. And, I am wondering if it needs to update the stuff each time. Thanks!!!! Signed: CLueless.

  7. #7 cheryl says:

    my son and i both have ipod nanos and my daughter has one on our other computer.How can me and my son have both ipods on the same coumputer??

  8. #8 Rich Trouton says:

    Cheryl,

    If you’re using Mac OS X, set up different user accounts for you and your son. That way, your iPod syncs up with the music collection on your account, and your son’s will sync up with his.

  9. #9 Hiedi says:

    ok so i just got a new iPod and my son has already had an iPod, when I downloaded it they put all of his songs onto mine and basically deleted his account… how do i create a new account??

  10. #10 Tia says:

    the computer will not read the other i-pod. it just days that there is no i-pod connected

  11. #11 blah says:

    please help…. me and my sister both have ipods… and only one computer, we each would like to organize our playlists differently but cannot figured out a way to do this… some one pleeeeeaseee help!

  12. #12 My Fiance will kill me if I screw this up! Please help! says:

    My fiance and I have recently decided to use her PC to sync both of our Ipods. My question has to do with the very beginning steps of this process. When I plug my Ipod into her PC for the first time it reads it as new hardware. Do I follow the windows XP prompts to set-up this “new hardware” or is there something else I should do instead. The bottomline is: I don’t want to overwrite my fiance’s Ipod info on XP because she will see to my demise. Can someone please help me sync my ipod while not disrupting my fiance’s?

  13. #13 Chris Holland says:

    don’t plug your Fiance’s iPod into your PC unless you’re ready and willing for everything on your PC to overwrite what’s on her iPod. In your specific instance, it would likely erase everything that’s on it.

    While you can have multiple iPods sync’ed on one PC or Mac, what it means is, you are able to have your PC’s library mirrored on multiple iPods. If an iPod was tied to antoher PC’s library, you can’t *merge* anything.

    In other words, the process of synchronizing your music library is very-much a one-way process, it’s PC –> iPod. It’s not really synchronizing … well, depending on the definition of “synchronizing”. heh.

  14. #14 My Fiance will kill me if I screw this up! Please help! says:

    I removed the Autosync option on the Itunes software already but the XP (system software itself) New hardware wizard is my main concern at the moment. If I were to follow the prompts on the XP system’s “add new hardware wizard”, would my fiance’s ipod be overwritten in regards to the drivers?

    Essentially, her Ipod has already been installed on the pc in question so if I were to plug my ipod into said pc (this is before I even open Itunes and concern myself with it’s recognition of the new ipod) and then install my ipod as well; would the original ipod be overwritten and no longer be recognised by XP?

    I may be confusing this matter since I have no pc expertise at all. I really don’t want to cause more of a headache for my fiance when she is ready to go back in and update her ipod.

    I mainly want to get a clear answer to the windows end of the process. Since I know that any disturbances with the drivers can cause havoc in the future.

    Thank you for the quick response to my issue. I hope I can get further help.

  15. #15 Servaes says:

    On iTunes 6 supporting multiple ipods (and the screenshot by Sam Pullara): does anyone know this works in Windows too? I can’t find anything about multiple ipods the help. (am deciding whether to buy a shuffle next to my 30gb)

    thanks!

  16. #16 Olivia says:

    My sister and I both have iPods. I got mine first so the library has all my music on it. I guess the library is the main source of music. So I put all her songs she wanted into the library and then put it into a playlist titled “Hannah’s iPod” and then deleted the songs from my library. Obviously it deleted the songs from her iPod library and then her iPod when she plugged it in.

    WE DEFINATLY DO NOT WANT ANY OF THE SAME MUSIC ON OUR IPODS. HOW CAN WE BOTH HAVE OUR OWN PLAYLIST OR LIBRARY WITHOUT ANYTHING BEING DELETED?

    Important note: My dad’s computer is not able to make new user names or accounts. So there is only one.

  17. #17 Rich Trouton says:

    Sorry to say it, Olivia, but whatever’s keeping your father’s computer from making new user accounts really needs to be fixed before you and your sister will be able to do what you’re asking to do.

  18. #18 Jessica says:

    I am having the same problem as Olivia. My brother and I each have an ipod and we do not want the same songs on them. If anyone knows how to make that happen please tell me!

  19. #19 Rich Trouton says:

    Jessica,

    If you and your brother have a Mac running OS X, set up different accounts for the two of you. He loads his music in his account, you load yours in yours, and then just make sure you’re logged into your own account when you want to sync your iPod.

  20. #20 dhollinger says:

    MULTIPLE IPODS - everyone says that you can manage your ipods in itunes. every time i get a new one (i’m at number 4 now) i set it up the way is says to… and then itunes won’t recognize the old one. it seems to me it only recognizes one, the new one. how can i change the settings to handle all of them for different things. one for books, one for workout music, one for listening, one for “what was i thinking - there has to be a better devise?!”
    THANKS TO ANYONE WHO CAN HELP!

  21. #21 yat says:

    what you need to do is(assuming you have windows) go to file then create new playlist, then create all the playlists you want for your own use,then create all the playlist that the other person who uses the ipod wants
    than go into each playlist and add all the songs that eacj of you prefer

    then go to edit> prefrances >choose the ipod tab at the top >then the music tab underneath then when the relevent ipod is plugged in and choose >aotomaticlly update selected playlists only, the depending on whos ipod it is tick the relevent playlists and
    you have to then plug in the next ipod and do the same , this time selecting the remaining playlists

    and viola………………….
    when you add songs to each playlist, each ipod will only sync with the playlists which it has been told to sync with…..

    useful anyone???

  22. #22 Emily says:

    sorry , but my sister and i both have iPods. I just got mine yesterday, and it’s a shuffle. She has a mini, and no way does she have 120 songs on it. AND i dont have a Mac running OS X. So that is no help. What should we do to get both on the same computer?

  23. #23 Rich says:

    Hi Emily,
    The post above yours explains how to do what you want.
    Key thing is to turn off “automatic updating” for the smaller iPod. Then create a playlist for the small iPod, and use the instructions posted by Yat to set it up so it updates.

  24. #24 jess says:

    My itunes didnt automatically recognise 2 different ipods (nano and 5g). So I set up 2 user accounts so now there are 2 itunes librarys - one for each windows user account. Easy Peasy

  25. #25 Russ says:

    Hi.. Glad I’m not the only technophobe out there.
    I have the latest 60g Video Ipod and my girlfriend an old 4g Mini Ipod. Can I update the Itunes on our chared PC with latest SW receievd with new video Ipod and will this version of Itunes work with the (very) old Mini Ipod?? Thanks for your advice.

  26. #26 Leon says:

    OK. I can see that having 2 different iPods on one PC (running Win XP) is doable.
    Since am an iPod virgin and just want to see how this can be accomplished, is there a specific guide that someone could point me to, so that we can follow something step-by step.
    Basically, the 2 iPods have different libraries of music.
    Would it be possible to synch or move the music from the smaller capacity iPod to the larger one, so the larger one acts as the backup “device”.
    Its going to take me longer to delete files/apps in my PC to create space for BOTH iPod libraries.
    Appreciate any help/suggestion or forward to a link that can do so.
    Thanks!

  27. #27 Sarah P says:

    can someone please help me as there is a lot of fighting going on at the moment here!

    I firstly have an ipod mini, my brother just got a brand nw ipod. We have figued out how to deal with updating each others ipod. BUT -I not cannot listen to iTunes properly anymore. It’s only his music that is selected, so I have to manually click all my songs to play. And I can’t use shuffle as there’s only his selected. We have a PC (not mac) we have tried setting up two user accounts, but it hasn’t made a difference. PLEASE please someone help us before i kill him because it’s all working in his favour, even though I actually had the ipod first?!

    We need TWo separate libraries!!

  28. #28 Lee says:

    I successfully had a 4 gig and a 1 gig nano running on itunes, untill the auto update tried to update the software on the 4 gig, it stopped half way through and “froze”. in the end I had to disconnect the ipod as it was doing nothing (the do not disconnect symbol would not go)!I lost all the songs that I had loaded onto it! Now itunes will not see the 4 gig at all, it only sees the original 1 gig!
    I have tried running the 2 ipods on 4 different PC’s and it seems to corrupt the itunes on all the PC’s
    it done something that stopped itunes seeing the 1 gig, on all PC’s exept the new windows XP which ‘luckily’ still sees it!! help!! I need the 4 gig as the 1 gig is not big enough.

  29. #29 Elaine says:

    Hi…I am thick. Now I have told you that I feel better. I have a 60GB ipod. My daughter has a new 80GB ipod. I have loads of songs etc. on my (Windows XP) PC. Could someone very simply tell me (I am 60 - so make allowances)how I can use the same pc for my daughter - we dont mind sharing the exact same music as we have enough space. Do I have to put all my music from my LIBRARY into PLAYLISTS, or is there a way of my daughters ipod just getting what I have displayed on LIBRARY. Thanks so much - Elaine

  30. #30 Noreen says:

    Hi Guys,

    I have an old 3rd or 4th gen ipod(it’s in black and white). my sister just bought a new ipod nano, so i set up a new user account for her. she started putting songs onto it and everything was working fine.

    i then logged into my user account and my itunes program had disappeared. i tried to download itunes, but it won’t let me, saying it is already on the computer.

    I’m pretty sure my music is still on the computer, but can someone please tell me how to get the itunes programe onto my account.

    Please help or i’ll cry, boo hoo hoo

    Noreen

  31. #31 Alison says:

    This is all very worrying reading this.

    We have a windows pc (XP) and my daughter has an iPod mini and itunes.
    We have separate user names/id’s BUT when she downloaded iTunes it appeared, complete with all her music on my side of the pc as well as hers.

    Today I ordered a 30 GB video iPod for myself and was looking for information on having 2 separate libraries and am now very worried we wont even be able to run 2 iPods never mind 2 libraries.

  32. #32 bob says:

    forget the hassel. its really not that hard. I have a 60gig vid and a 30g vid. just take off automatic updating, install your 2 ipods and just click and drag whatever music, mpeg4 files from folders in your computer into the ipod icon on the left of itunes.give it a few seconds 2 load especially if you don’t have a USB2. This will not be very organized but it gets the job done quite well. It also allows you to delete the files off your computer that take up space while you have it still on your ipod. There wore great as hardrives.

  33. #33 Bill says:

    As stated above, it not that hard. I have 4 ipods using the same ITUNES. I have a 30gb vid, my son’s have a 30 & 60gb vids. My wife has a 512mb Shuffle she uses to work out to.
    History- I got my 30gb last Xmas, setup itunes and added music, (downloaded from Itunes, copied from cd, and some MP3s), then 5gb of pics I have taken over the past several years, download podcast(audio & video), and video(music and movies). Next my wife’s bday, she has got the Shuffle, I started Itunes, plugged the Shuffle in, ITunes comes up with a new devise, and I add a new name, update the software, then turn off the auto-sync for the Shuffle. When I add music, I set up a new playlist or just add it to her Shuffle(drag & drop). For my son’s, (both for their Bdays), I just added and auto-sync, (They have the space). Last week was my oldest son’s bday, and he wanted an Ipod. Because the new 80gb are out he was able to get the 60 for the price of the 30. Anyway, my youngest wanted a move, “Gone in 60 Seconds” , so I updated Itunes software, the ipod software, download 1 movie(1.5gb took over 1 hour), 6 songs and added my oldest son’s new 60gb, (which I updated his software and loaded over 8gb of music, pics, video, podcasts) all at the same time. It took several hours, but I was downloading, updating software(itunes & ipods), and loading (autosync) two different Ipods all at the same time. I was impressed with how easy it was.

    Right now the above is using my user account on Windows XP, I have request from the boys for them to have their own Itunes(setup on the same XP computer, different user accounts), but for now this is working.

    I hope this is helpful.

  34. #34 sue says:

    I just got a 30 gig ipod and my sister has the same one. she has her own comuter but we plugged hers into my itunes to play a song and when i took hers off and plugged mine back into my computer, somehow her whole ipod got put onto mine and all of my music that was there is gone. It even says “Emily’s ipod” (my sisters) when i plug mine in instead of “sue’s ipod”. i obviously did something wrong because they have switched identities. The thing is none of her music plays on my ipod. every song has an exclamation point inside a circle when its plugged into itunes. does anyone know how i can counter act what ive done? is there a way to get my ipods music back without having to maually erase and put everything back on? thanks.

  35. #35 Meeka says:

    hello,
    me and my daughter both have i-pods.
    i have the i-pod nano,and my daughter has the i-pod mini. my daughters i-pod was set up on our old computer which crashed. now we have a new computer and my i-pod is already set up on it but, when we try to set hers up it said something about an account being on another computer and if we wanted to have her account on this computer it would move the account to here. but, when we decided to press yes all of her songs got deleted and it started putting my songs on it. please help.

  36. #36 Jim Thomas says:

    I’m about to jump into this particular cesspool myself. I have a 40 gB ipod that I’ve had for almost 3 years. It’s full, and I have albums that won’t fit on it. I figured that they’ve updated the ipods enough (in terms of storage capacity, battery life, etc) that I’ve ordered a new 80 gig one.

    I don’t want to update with playlists, I want each ipod to have its own separate library. I’m going to put all my music on an external hard drive. I will manage the new ipod off of “my” user account, and manage the old one off of the admin account. After all, all the library does (as I understand it) is “point” to the music location. Two ipods can use the same music location, with each one having different albums in their libraries. I’ll just have to make sure that when I update each one, I am logged into the appropriate user account. It won’t be that inconvenient, it’s not like I will update each one every day. The music I listen to most often will be on the 80 gig one, with the 40 gig one for music I listen too less often and podcasts.

    Wish me luck….

  37. #37 Topher says:

    My brother and I both have 2 G iPod nanos operating on the same computer. It works fine for putting songs into the seperate iPods, but we want seperate libraries as well so that they’re not all stored together in one big melting pot. I’m not talking about seperate playlists for each of our songs, I mean whole seperate accounts and not a superficial change to one account to make it appear that it’s been solved, as is Apple’s solution to most of these problems. Sorry for the intense description of the problem I want solved, but it’s been bugging me for a while and googling the problem just brings up people’s hatred for itunes and its lack of problem-solving.

  38. #38 Shawn says:

    Here is my detailed step by step tutorial for an easy way to manage multiple iPods on one computer with a common music library. This is based on Windows/PC iTunes.

    a) At the top menu for iTunes, select “View” and then “View Options” and click on the “Comment” box and click “OK”. Make sure that you can see the “Comment” field in your iTunes library layout. If you can’t see the “Comment” field, then you need to remove some of the other information being viewed by going back and un-checking something from the “View Options” menu.

    b) Sort your full/complete iTunes library by artist, or how ever you want to base your song selection. Sorting by artist is probably the most obvious method.

    c) Highlight all of the songs to be targeted for a particular iPod (e.g. Shawn’s Ipod). Use the shift and/or control button to allow you to grap multiple songs at once.

    d) When you have the desired set of songs highlighted, right click on your mouse and select “Get Info”. Click OK to bypass the warning box.

    e) In the provided “Comment” field, enter that particular iPod’s Name (e.g. “Shawn”) and click “OK”. You may have to repeat c, d, and e several times, depending on how many songs you feel comfortable grabbing at one time. MAKE SURE YOU ENTER THE INFORMATION IN THE “COMMENT” BOX AND NOT ANY OTHER BOX SINCE CHANGES WILL BE APPLIED TO ALL SELECTED SONGS”

    f) After you have put the appropriate identifiers for this particular iPod in the “Comment” field of your library, go to the main iTunes menu at the top of the screen and select “File” and then “New Smart Playlist”

    g) Change the first click-down menu field to “Comment”, then leave the word “Contains” in the second field, then put “Shawn” in the last box, and leave the “Live Update” box selected.

    h) Now, get the iPod that you are working with and connect it to the PC. When you plug in that iPod, change it to “Manually Update”, and then change it to “Update only selected playlists” (i.e. Shawn)

    With this method, you can easily add muliple names in the “Comments” field and create a Smart Playlist for each name. For instance, you can have “Shawn Patty” in the comment field for some songs, and your Smart Play list will bring it in to Shawn’s iPod just by seaching for the name “Shawn”.

  39. #39 Ian says:

    Bought a Nano 30 GB and want to transfer all my music from my current Nano onto it. I’m giving my old Nano to my wife. I’ve set up two accounts on my Windows computer. How do I transfer the music to my new Nano and clean off the older one?

  40. #40 justin says:

    my itunes took all of my songs off of my ipod (nano 1GB) and it wont let me put them back on the ipod. how do i put my 200+ songs back on it?

  41. #41 rachel says:

    shawn-
    don’t get letter G

  42. #42 rachel says:

    shawn-
    my brother has an ipod nano and i’m getting one i like your advice and all but how do u add songs to just MY ipod. do i make different libraries. i just don’t want his songs.

  43. #43 Dave says:

    I found this software that can easily manage several iPods, iTunes libraries and users, it’s for PC.

    http://www.copypod.net/ilibs.php

    Of course the same can be done manually but why bother…

  44. #44 Gabby says:

    Me and my sister have both got ipod nanos i want 2 put all her songs from her itunes library on my i pod (we have the same gr8 taste in music !) but i dont want to wipe all her song off her library does any1 no how 2 do it (we have windows xp) thanx x

  45. #45 john says:

    i bought an ipod and my cousin has itunes on her computer but i want to get some music from her and she is afraid that it will clear her whole library if we try this, may someone please tell me how we can put music on my ipod without clearing her library?

  46. #46 Tom says:

    I just got an iPod nano and my sister already has one, how do I get some of her songs but not all of them? and how do i connect my iPod with her account?

  47. #47 Tom says:

    I just got an iPod nano and my sister already has one, how do I get some of her songs but not all of them? and how do i connect my iPod with her account?

  48. #48 Katie says:

    I got a 2GB ipod nano for christmas and i have a computer at home and i have music i could put on my ipod but i am leaving for college in 5 months and will recieve and new pc, i was wondering if i could take my ipod and use it on muliple computers to download music onto it…

  49. #49 carley says:

    how do you create 2 different accounts on one computer to keep 2 different ipods and the songs separate?

  50. #50 tubino says:

    I get an error message with Sam Pullara’s URL. Anyone else having that problem? Sam, would you please correct?

    Thanks.

  51. #51 Bryn says:

    Shawn - that’s really good advice mate; really helped my dad and I out. What happened was we both had 20GB iPods - but mine broke so I obviously wanted a new one. I got an 80Gb for Xmas and so did he. What he wanted to do was to have the 80GB with his music on it and his old one just give to my mum with only her music on it…. and with your advice I was able to sort it out for him.

    Thanks! =)

  52. #52 kerina says:

    i dont know how to put music on my ipod nano 2GB.
    can any of you’s help because everytime i do it i cant play them and it doesnt even show that i have copyed them on my ipod ive tryed everting
    please help me!!!

  53. #53 stephen says:

    Hey, im wondering if anyone can help me. I currently have a 20g ipod, and im looking to buy a 30g video ipod basically just to upgrade. I wont be using the 20g anymore, so do i just basically hook up the new ipod to the pc and it will sync up everything that is on there.

  54. #54 Kurt says:

    Please help…..I have a 30 gig video ipod and it works great. I also have a new shuffle. When I connect the shuffle to my computer the computer does not recognize it. I can’t get the “shuffle” to show up at all in itunes. However, the other ipod does show up. Any ideas?

  55. #55 Trisha says:

    Hey ok so i need help…i just recently bought a ipod nano. and none of the songs on my daughters itunes will transfer to mine. Mine will charge. but i cant get any songs on it. can you help please?

  56. #56 Richard says:

    Shawn
    I am OK till step h) Now, get the iPod that you are working with and connect it to the PC. When you plug in that iPod, change it to “Manually Update”, and then change it to “Update only selected playlists” (i.e. Shawn)

    How do you change the IPOD to ‘Manually Update’ and then ‘Update only selected playl8ist’?
    Is that on the IPOD itself or ITunes

  57. #57 Vicki says:

    Hi, and help. Two ipods, one computer, cool playlists. In short my husband has a 30G older Ipod, me an 80G. I love his new music that he loads, he HATEs my girlie “blarrgh” music I load. Is there anyway that we can manage two devices, but multiple playlists, as he doesn;t want to have to save the music into two playlists each time. Happy for info on software or other options….. all cheaper than divorce. Hey and thank for the time spent replying.

  58. #58 Brian says:

    Do I have to download ITunes a second time to have two accounts OR when I plug in IPod 2 will it walk me throught it?

  59. #59 Northvetter says:

    Hi, I just purchased two ipod nano 4 GB. (Pink/green) One for my daughter and the other one for my wife. Is there anyone who could provide me with the step by step instructions to manage both? Also, when byoijng a song from ipod store, can the song be downloaded to both ipds or do we have to purchase it twice?

    Pleeeaaase help.

    Thanks.

  60. #60 mel says:

    help…
    my daughter and i have our own ipods, whenever we download music from itunes her music gets on my ipod and mine on hers! how can i manage both our ipods on itunes and avoid downloading her music on mine and my music on hers! so frustrating!
    thank you!

  61. #61 Grady says:

    I just bought an ipod 30g ipod and do not know much about it. My roommate says that when her boyfriend plugged into her itunes with his video ipod it deleted all of her itunes and cleared her ipod. What can be done to fix this so that I can put some songs on my ipod while I am waiting on my PC to come back from service. Furthermore, my little sister already has a nano and she has itunes downloaded on the home computer and I would like to know how I can manage songs on both ipods without deleting anything.
    Thanks!

  62. #62 nate says:

    my friend and i both have ipod nanos and use the same credit card how do we use the same itunes account since he made the account before i got the ipod nano

  63. #63 julie says:

    My husband ans i just got two NANO’s. My sister loaded all her music to mine. My husband set his up (a silver NANO and it apprears as silver on the Computer) on our home computer. When i plug my Nano into the computer it shows my PINK NANO but shows it as his device with his device name and a message comes up tht says i can either erase and sync my NANO with his (I do not want to do this) or i can transfer purchases - i do not want to do this. I just want my music on the computer under a device with my name…HELP!!!!! THANKS!

  64. #64 Nat says:

    Three ipods (2 new shuffle, 1 old 40g), two computers, one external hard drive all files mp3 files (240 G), first time ipod user. Question 1: What’s the easiest way to move the files to the ipods and do not dupplicate the files in my external drive (i.e. mp3 - itunes.) Question 2: Is there any way I can manage the three ipods with both computers back and forward indistinctively? Thanks.

  65. #65 Maylin Brucker says:

    I have a 80 G ipod and I want another 80G ipod to back up my whole library. Is it possible to plug in the second ipod and copy the whole library. Will the first ipod be recognize when plugged in to itunes?

  66. #66 Lexi says:

    My parents computer lost all info, so when I went to reload my i-pod nano on again it says it doesnt recognize my computer! What do I do?

  67. #67 Alicia says:

    Ok- I’ve read all the comments and they seem really helpful… but I have a question before I go messing with it all.

    Like everyone else here- I have 2 ipods for one computer (windows). I want to know if I’m going to be able to have multiple playlist on the ipod. ascially my Mom is a fitness instructor and is going to want to be able to make new playlist all the time- is this possible since we have her Ipod and my Brother’s ipod on the same itunes?

  68. #68 Please Help!!! - Jen says:

    Resently my computer crashed erasing everything I had. I have a 5th gen. ipod with about 3,200+ songs on it. I have windows itunes & I was wondering how I could reload everything that’s on my ipod to itunes without erasing anything on my ipod??

  69. #69 Chey says:

    Alirighty now- How do you delete the music off of your ipod nano? Thanks and i hope that someone can help me delete these stupid songs off of my ipod nano!!! lol love, Cheyenne Be sure someone writes me back,i really dont want to listen to kiss and ozzy osbourne for a year!! Bye

  70. #70 help says:

    I am concidering buying an ipod. My sister already has an ipod on this computer. Will both ipods work with a recently installed itunes on the same computer?

  71. #71 problems says:

    My dad and I both have iPod nanos. Every time he or I plug our iPods in, all the songs transfer onto the wrong iPod. My songs go on his or his songs go on mine. I don’t understand how to separate our libraries. Someone please help me!

  72. #72 problems says:

    Chey, you just have to uncheck the box next to said songs, right click, and delete.

  73. #73 MT says:

    how do you make a new user account?

  74. #74 Miggy says:

    I just did this whole two ipods, one computer thing. I had to create a second user account. I then went into the file where my itunes info was stored, copied it and placed it in a shared music file. Once i went into the new user account, i opened itunes and found the file and imported into the new user account itunes. Once it was all in the library, I plugged in the ipod and sync’d with that itunes. Went back to my original user account and made sure nothing affected my first ipod…all was good. Plus, any itunes store purchased items went with the files and thus were placed in the second ipod. Hope this helps….

  75. #75 Johny J says:

    My problem is I have a 4g, but the library that I have on it is on a old computer that doesn’t work any more. Now I have a new computer, a 30g, and a new library. I want to get the old songs off my 4g and transfer it to my new computer, but it keeps saying that it wants to erase my old playlist and put the new library onto my 4g. I don’t want to do that because they are different song that I don’t have any more. Can somebody please help me? I would appreciate it.

  76. #76 Jason says:

    Richard
    Shawn’s step h)
    it’s in the Tabs
    Beside “Summary” Tab the Music Tab
    allows you to select update manually and choose the playlist.

  77. #77 lisa says:

    I have two iPod accounts in my iTunes folder. How do I delete songs back out?

    I’m really hoping someone has a better solution than to put all of my 1700-something songs (AND videos) into a stupid playlist.

  78. #78 Chiah says:

    Hi all, this may be obvious, but if you are wanting to run two Ipods off of the one computer (PC), and have decided to take the option of setting up two separate user accounts and running two separate iTunes libraries, do you need to download iTunes twice? Will this wipe my brother’s existing account (which has been on my computer for over a year and is therefore quite large)?

  79. #79 Charles says:

    my brother has a 2gb ipod and i just bought my boyfriend a 4gb ipod and we dont know how to manage both ipods on the same itunes?? i made a playlist for my boyfriends and i put only 9 songs on it so then when i added my brothers ipod it had erased all his songs and put the 9 songs that my boyfriend had….how do i put the two ipods on the same itunes?? please HELP ME!!

  80. #80 Dlink1010 says:

    FOR ANYONE WITH 2 IPODS NOT WANTING THE SAME MUSIC: A possible solution is to have both ipods music in the itunes library then create two seperate playlists with the different music and go to preferences in itunes and set up the playlists as the syncing folder for the respective ipod. ask questions for help, i havent done this yes but plan to in the future as my bro has his 40gig ipod and i am getting my new ipod touch and am looking in advance to make sure it is possible to deal with 2 ipods on one itunes. it should be too hard.

  81. #81 Jpod says:

    Apple has a great doc on solving this problem here:

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300432

  82. #82 Confused and need help says:

    I have an Ipod nano and my sister just got a shuffle we don’t want the same music on our ipods and we only have one computer so we set up an itunes account for her and I already had one. When we got hers set up I looked in her library and she has all my music, how do I get my music out of her library without deleting all of my music in the process? And if I set up two playlists one for each of us will the music be deleted from either of our ipods even if we set it to manual??

  83. #83 susie says:

    Hi
    I am reading all this messages, everyone with the same prob of the multiple ipod and only one pc - Do people exsist that will come to your home and sort this out for a fee (not a huge one?) Has anyone had any experience with IT support people who do this?
    Many thanks

  84. #84 jason says:

    i added songs on my ipod using my friends cmputer but now when i put it on my computer it doesnt let me manually delete songs from my itunes?

  85. #85 chris says:

    Okay !!! I’ve made multiple email accounts and now i’ve gone over my limit? I’ve just now gottn all my info back on my lold accounts but before knowing that i’ had exceded the four email accounts i’ve purchased forty songs with a new account today. is there a way to keep those songs or am i screwed?

  86. #86 Fernando Raimundo says:

    I have a 60G ipod and it`s full, I want to buy another one and i don`t know how to manage with the new ipod without transfer to the new one the musics i have in the older one, Please explain to me in an easy way because i don`t understand much of this
    thanks in advance

  87. #87 Apple laptop battery says:

    Hi all, this may be obvious, but if you are wanting to run two Ipods off of the one computer (PC), and have decided to take the option of setting up two separate user accounts and running two separate iTunes libraries.

  88. #88 M8244 says:

    work well for my two iPod nanos.

  89. #89 Scott says:

    I got a question!! See I am borrowing my friends ipod. He is lending it to me for the summer. He has about 2gigs worth of stuff on it. Well, i want to know if it is possible to add my own songs on it from itunes on my computer?? When I plug it in i get this thing that tells me it can only be synced with one itunes thingy, and it gives me two options, either to erase the previous stuff on the ipod, or “transfer Purchases”. What does the whole “transfer Purchases” mean and do?? Thats my question, please helpp!!

  90. #90 bg2026 says:

    Ok, so apparently you cannot have two ipods on a PC at the same time. I have two ipods, an older 20 gig and an early nano. I’ll confess from the start that I don’t know exactly how, but my PC was able to recognize both ipods (not simotaniously, but at separate times), and even more than that, I was able to load friend’s ipods too and give them music/access and play their music on my computer (while connected). And all on the same user account, without managing anything.

    I now have an MacBook Pro. I want to connect my second ipod, at a separate time, but it does not seem to be working properly. Itunes recognizes an ipod. BUT, not being the original one I connected, every song/every playlist is grayed out. I cannot highlight anything listed as being on this alt. ipod, let alone play anything or update it.

    I have friends with MacBooks who have just taken my ipod, hooked it up, and given me music…Can anyone explain the troubles I’m having now that I have my own MacBook?

  91. #91 Mr.Spore says:

    I think the latest itunes has support for multiple ipods.

  92. #92 MacBook MB403LL Battery says:

    Apple has a great doc on solving this problem here:

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300432

    http://www.laptopbattery-inc.co.uk/apple-laptop-battery-c-77.html

  93. #93 Trev says:

    Hey Shawn,
    Great detailed step by step tutorial. But, can you give one for NON-common music library. I would like to plug iPod A into the computer and let it sync for it’s library and updates, etc.. I would like to plug in iPod B to do the same thing, but with it’s own library.

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